by Jessica Durando, USA TODAY Network

by Jessica Durando, USA TODAY Network

Clinton told a CNN town hall Tuesday that she sees the "benefits" of medical marijuana and wants to "wait and see what the evidence is" from the two states experimenting with legalizing cannabis for recreational use.

Colorado and Washington state have legalized recreational pot use and a number of states have policies on medical marijuana.

"At the risk of committing radical candor, I have to say I think we need to be very clear about the benefits of marijuana use for medicinal purposes," Clinton said during an interview with CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour.

The former secretary of State, who is promoting her book Hard Choices, said that "there should be availability (of marijuana) under appropriate circumstances."

But suggested that we need more research, "because we don't know how it interacts with other drugs." And called states the "laboratories of democracy" in terms of seeing how recreational policies play out.

Has she ever used marijuana? Nope and she doesn't plan to begin smoking it. "I didn't do it when I was young. I'm not going to start now," Clinton said.